Fusce Ascensorem
by ImperialCommander
Summary: Fusce Ascensorem - The Dark Rider. Set in year 120AD in the moors of present day Scotland, it documents the massacre of legion IX Hispania, and the actions of a sole, elite Roman cavalry squadron (who were not present with the legion) following the attack. Only loosely based on the film!
1. Chapter 1

The legion had been marching steadily now through the thick mists for what seemed to be days, further north than any Roman had ever gone before. The land was harsh, just as Britannia was – although it seemed to be colder, and the mist that rolled over the moors gave the legionaries the uneasy feeling that Pluto was following them and shadowing their every move. Either way, the three thousand men who had been dispatched north from York upon orders from the Emperor in Rome, were to obtain information regarding the cold lands and report back to York.

So far however, the expedition was not going as planned. The cavalry that should have been with the legion had been split in two; one cavalry squadron had been sent north of the main body to scout the land ahead for any settlements, whilst the other squadron had been dispatched to the west, to deal with a group of brigands and were at least half a day's ride behind the column. In addition, the legion also had very little missile support, as the few archers that had previously accompanied the legion had recently been absorbed into another legion that was bound west to deal with a potential uprising. This had resulted in the only missile infantry being a few hundred poorly disciplined archers who had been conscripted from York. Put simply, over a third of the legion's strength was depleted. Right when it was needed the most.

Of the cavalry squadron that had rode west, just over a hundred out of the one hundred and fifty riders were riding north again. When the horsemen had been pursuing the fleeing warband of brigands through a valley, they had been ambushed by a party of spear throwing skirmishers from the hilltop. As soon as the cavalry had reacted to this threat, the brigands who had previously been fleeing turned heel and charged the horsemen who were attempting to get up the hill towards the skirmish troops. However, the spearmen were only a warband, mainly made up of farmers and peasants, none of whom had the skill or discipline to face off against the elite Roman heavy cavalry. As the remaining cavalry thundered towards them, the men had broken and began to flee towards the hills and to their homes. Knowing that the skirmish troops would make a run for the forest if they were given half the chance, the commander of the cavalry squadron directed that the squadron was to be split in two. The first half of the men under his command would chase down the routing brigands, whilst the remaining half was to charge and cut down the skirmish troops before they could escape. The second squadron was commanded by Marcus Linius, a veteran cavalryman who had served in campaigns from Thrace to Gaul over a span of nearly two decades.

Linius led his men at a brisk trot towards the hill, convinced that the skirmishers would still have a nasty surprise in store for him and his men. Experiences against other natives in the region had resulted in finding that out the hard way; therefore he wasn't surprised when the men leapt out from the grass armed with short wooden spears and rounded shields. Knowing it would be foolish to charge them head on with the horses in fear that they would not break, Linius ordered his men to dismount. He knew that dismounted heavy cavalry made for incredibly dangerous infantrymen due to the weapons that they carried, along with the armour they wore. Linius himself carried a large sica, a large, curved blade that he had taken from a Thracian rebel prince whom he had killed during battle. It was a menacing weapon, almost three times the length of his forearm, with a brutally sharpened edge. Linius and his men charged uphill towards the skirmishers, swinging the monstrous cavalry sword that he brandished in his right hand, cleaving into the ranks of the skirmishers. The blades of the cavalrymen, all of different sorts, sliced through the wooden shields with ease, shredding the flesh of the men cowering behind them. It was not long before the skirmishers also broke, and began to run towards the hills. However, they did not get very far, as the minute they were out on open ground, the squadron's commander, Antonius, appeared on the ridgeline on their right flank. With a blood curdling roar, he led his men on a charge down the slope towards the routing skirmishers, hacking and slashing at the men who were attempting to flee until not a single man was still standing. The entire skirmish was over in under ten minutes.

Not a single man had fled the field that day, resulting in over three hundred brigands being brought to justice – something that the Roman governor of York would reward Antonius for handsomely. After the two squadrons rejoined and counted their losses and wounded, Antonius took Linius to one side. "Listen Linius, I have to head to York to tell the governor about the extermination of these brigands", he gestured, indicating to a bloodied corpse that lay on the ground behind him. "We can't have any supply trains for the legion at risk of being late now, can we?" Grudgingly, Linius accepted what Antonius had to say and sent him on his way, leaving Linius with a hundred and two men and forty two men for him to bury.

Upon Antonius' departure, Linius and the men set to work on burying the deceased, paying whatever funeral rites that could be performed on the cold, barren land and prayed to Pluto for their souls' acceptance into the underworld. The few wounded were also taken care of, which did not take too long since there were few injuries, and out of those who were injured, none were life threatening. After taking care of these matters, the men set up camp a few miles away beside the river. They were to ride northeast at first light to catch up with the legion. In the meantime, Linius retired to his tent to reflect on the day, and rest for the long ride on the morrow.


	2. Chapter 2

Three-quarters of a day's ride ahead of Linius' men, the legion were marching onwards, through a steep-sided valley. The mist that had hampered the visibility of the column earlier that morning had dissipated, but within a half hour, was replaced by a blanket of icy fog. Now, the legionaries were unable to see more than twenty paces in front of them, and could hear nothing but from the deathly silence that had haunted them throughout the day. The commander of the legion, a shrewd man who went by the name of Marconi, urged the men to press on to find a suitable site to make camp. Like the men, he did not feel comfortable with the fog and the bad omens that he and they had seen, however, he did not show it.

As the legion continued its trek, even more dark omens began to surface. Wolves began howling in the fog, crows circled overhead like the vultures in the Egyptian deserts, crying their haunting croaks towards the ground below. But as the men in the column began to ask themselves why, a sudden yelp from the cohort at the head of the column explained why. Sprawled across the ground were the bodies of many men and horses, many half buried in the mud and rocks. Most of the corpses were defiled, with limbs hacked off, whilst some seemed to have only sustained wounds that were obtained in battle. Either way, it made for a grisly and incredibly unnerving sight for the men. Especially since the corpses were the bodies of fellow Roman cavalry, who had ridden a few hours ahead of the legion to act as scouts for the main force. As the column came to a halt and the men began to break formation to check for survivors, a volley of arrows came whistling down from the top of the hill.

Arrows slammed into the shields, armour and exposed flesh of the weary soldiers, causing scores of the men to drop to the floor, either dead or wounded. A burly centurion bellowed orders to his cohort for the men to adopt the testudo formation to protect them against the arrows, but another volley rained down upon the men before they could do so. One arrow skewered the centurion through the neck, and he dropped to the ground writhing, choking in a pool of his own blood. The other cohorts by now had adopted the testudo formation as well, meaning that the volleys of arrows that were raining down were no longer having the devastating effect that they were having before. The legionaries were absolutely terrified: they could not see where the arrows were coming from due to the combination of the fog and the darkness, nor could they see what was moving out in the fog. But they could hear it. From his horse, Marconi was screaming orders for his legion to bunch up closer together, in an effort to provide safety in numbers. He could see the movement in the fog, and he knew that the only way to counteract an unknown threat is to take up the strongest defensive formation possible – or charge at it headlong. And since the men were frozen to the spot in fear, the latter was not an option. Marconi and his father had fought in Britannia against the rebel forces for over four decades in total, meaning that he knew deep down that something was amiss if the Britons had not charged the legionaries by now, especially if they outnumbered his men as much as Marconi feared they did, based on the amount of arrows that had rained down upon the troops. But to his surprise, the missiles had stopped raining down, and there were no signs of any blue-painted warriors. The only thing that he could hear was the sound of a great horn in the distance somewhere, a bone chilling moan in the depths of the fog.

They might have been a veteran legion who had seen battle dozens of times, but not a single man in the ranks felt comfortable, knowing that the enemy were undoubtedly waiting for them somewhere in the depths of the fog. So in order to raise the morale of the men, Marconi ordered that the golden eagle standard of the legion was to be raised high above the column. The eagle itself, the standard of all Roman legions, was raised just in front of him, to the nervous cheers of the men nearby, who could see the eagle through the fog. After all, Marconi thought: several armies have fled the field of battle purely at the sight of a legionary eagle and the fearsome reputation of the men who fought under it. He remembered reading accounts as a youth of how barbarian hordes had ran the field of battle at the sight of Julius Caesar and his legions during his campaigns against Gaul, and prayed to Jupiter that these barbarians would do the same. But the gods did not seem to listen, as it was at that moment that the men began to hear a chanting in the fog, a chanting that was getting progressively louder. Before long, the sound of metal striking wood filled the air, as the barbarians battered their axes against the shields they were carrying, making the noise of ten legions running in full armour. There were no jibes or witty comments from the legionaries, as every single man had his eyes fixed on the ground ahead of him, waiting for the sight of a figure in the mist, just praying that the foe that was there would come soon. The sense of fear amongst the men was visible even to a blind man, half the men looked as if they were about to break formation and run for their lives. Even the centurions only whispered commands to the men, unusual since they would usually scream commands so even the enemy could hear them. And then came the sound that all the men had been waiting for in such anticipation: the sound of a charge.

And it was no small force either. The charge itself sounded like the stampede of a score of cavalry squadrons running over stones, yet no horsemen could be heard. Legionaries squinted into the fog, trying to get the first glimpse of the savages before they were upon them, raising their shields into an interlocking shield wall and preparing their swords. And then, the first few men came hurtling through the blanket of fog that covered the land. Huge men, some of the biggest men that the legionaries had ever seen, were clutching huge hand axes that most normal men would have held in both hands and used to fell the tallest of trees. The men mostly had beards that grew to halfway down their barreled chests, and were covered with black war paint; similar to what the Germanic tribes had worn over two centuries before. They kept a roar of defiance in their throats as they slammed into the legionary shield wall, smashing through it as the prow of a warship would do a trading vessel's hull. Massive swings of the axes from these titans were enough to send legionaries flying through the air, or in some cases, be completely severed in two. The legionaries who were not butchered with the axes got in close to the savages and began to hack at the savages with their gladius shortswords. But it made little difference: the huge men with the axes were capable of taking huge amounts of punishment before they dropped to the floor dead, most taking many slashes and stab wounds from multiple legionaries. And on top of that, a horde of slightly smaller men, holing single-handed hatchets, had charged into the breach in the Roman shield walls, and were hacking at the legionaries who had broken formation.

To his right, Marconi looked on in horror as a monstrosity of a man confronted the centurion of the seventh cohort; both men were giants and wielding brutal weapons. The centurion took a huge swing at the barbarian with his spatha, a long, straight sword usually only carried by cavalry officers. The sword's razor sharp edge buried itself in the ribcage of the barbarian, lodged between the creature's ribs. But it didn't stop him from letting out a huge bellow and burying the head of his axe into the chest of the centurion, smashing through the plate armour that he wore, shortly before both men dropped to the ground, their last breaths escaping their bodies. All around him, Marconi could see that his men were being decimated – and they had nowhere to run. Looking to his bodyguards, he realised that their fate was sealed, and the only thing that they could do was fight down to the last man. The men also seemed to think this, and their thoughts were reinforced the moment that the first cohort at the front of the column attempted to drop their weapons in surrender, and the savages who they were trying to surrender to as prisoners of war proceeded to hack the men to bits with their axes. To his rear, Marconi saw the standard bearer who was carrying the legion's golden eagle fall, as three barbarians wielding hatchets fell upon the poor man. This battle was over long ago, and no man would be able to convey the message of the legion's failure back to Rome. That is, unless the second cavalry squadron were still alive. As Marconi though this, a large man seized him by the scabbard and dragged him from his horse.


End file.
